About the Library

The Library is a key partner for those who teach. University of Delaware librarians are ready to collaborate with faculty, instructors, and teaching assistants to design and deliver instruction for students on a wide range of concepts and skills. Use the button below to request an instruction session or to consult with a librarian about your class’s needs.

What We Teach

Library instruction encompasses much more than just “how to use the library”. Here are some of the more common concepts that we cover in classes:

The Research Process

Scholarly vocabulary and keywords

Choosing sources

What is a database?

What is a periodical?

What are primary sources?

What are rare books and manuscripts?

Developing a research topic

Accessing resources

Advanced searching

Finding books and media

Accessing articles online

Finding digital collections

Source evaluation

Research organization and management

Beyond Basic Skills

Intro to discipline-specific sources

Mastering specialized vocabularies and terminology

Advanced search tips for specialized resources

Tips for research management

Critical reading of texts

Critical analysis of media

Designing assignments with primary sources

Specialized Skills

How to conduct a literature review

How to conduct a systematic review

Creating multimedia

Preproduction

Production

Post-production

Digital storytelling

Considering intellectual property

Citation searching

Finding funding resources

Researching patents

Searching rare books and manuscripts

Build a Digital Humanities project

Students Use Library Resources to Perform Corporate Intelligence and Industry Research

In Fall 2015 and Spring 2016, Meryl Gardner, Associate professor in Business Administration, taught BUAD 478: Field Projects in Marketing in which students gain hands-on experience as a marketing consultants.…

The subject matter of the course spans the discipline of marketing (including sales force management, competitive analysis, and promotional design) as well as the disciplines that interface with marketing within business organizations such as accounting, MIS, and management.

Students in the course can apply what they have learned at the university, from internships they have taken to any jobs they have had. One of the students’ responsibilities is to satisfy the business needs of a real client by applying their knowledge of marketing and business in a “real world” setting with local, regional, and national profit and nonprofit businesses on marketing projects funded by the companies. Projects involve defining objectives, collecting relevant data, analyzing, interpreting, and reporting results/recommendations to management.

To advise their clients, the students learned how to use library resources to conduct corporate intelligence, perform industry research, literature review, analyze annual reports, and other corporate fillings. The class met with the business librarian early in the semester, and project teams consulted with the librarian throughout the semester at all stages of their projects.

Of the collaboration, Dr. Gardner noted, “Pauly was instrumental in assisting these students to succeed this year, working both with the class and with individual project teams to ensure they had an understanding of the information resources they needed to complete their projects”. On how important the library collaboration was to her students, she added “some students told me that they wished they had had the opportunity to learn from Pauly Iheanacho earlier in their careers at the University”.

Undergraduates Engage with History

In consultation with Special Collections librarians, Kristen Poole, Professor in the department of English designed a semester-long project for her ENGL468 class that allowed students to acquire a new understanding of historical inquiry.…

Students used Special Collections materials to analyze early printed editions of the histories that Shakespeare used as source texts for his own plays. Special Collections librarians provided class sessions in which students analyzed rare books as a group. Each student conducted individual research using early-printed books from Special Collections. See the product of the students’ research in the class website!

Of the collaboration, Dr. Poole noted, “My students came into Special collections with one relationship to history and left with a different understanding. The experience of working with sixteenth-century texts gave them a new appreciation not just of that particular time period, but of the vagaries of constructing history in the first place.”

Multimedia Instruction

Brianna Newland, Assistant Professor in Sport Management, has collaborated with librarians on her business administration courses for several semesters.…

In one such course, BUAD 418, students learned how to use Adobe InDesign and Final Cut Pro X in library instruction sessions, and used these skills to create promotional flyers and videos for the Delaware Charity Challenge’s Adventure Challenge Relay.

Professor Newland writes, “The students would not have been able to complete this project without the help of Hannah, Nico, and the Student Multimedia Design Center. Sport event management requires proficiency in a number of areas, including graphic design and video editing for promotional materials. The SMDC provides exceptional instruction that enhances students’ skills in first-rate design and video software used by the industry. I could not be happier with the opportunity this affords my students.”